Monday, July 26, 2010

Smoked Tomato 'BLT'

Be forewarned: this is quite a strong sandwich. It almost made us cry! Well, okay, at least one of us teared up at the table; you can go ahead and guess who it was.

BLTs are great and all, but there's that pesky bacon issue to deal with. Something big and savory needs to take its place, and here, there were 3 such ingredients vying for dominance: The sweet, salty crunch of Van Cheeseman's pickled onions, the peppery bite of arugula, the rich slices of Maytag blue cheese, and the sweet smokiness put forth by the tomatoes. It's almost too much to bear in the best way you can imagine, so you may want to take the dare and see if you can handle it.

Smoked Tomatoes

I made a big batch of about 15 slices of these little beauties. I had them on sandwiches, in scrambled eggs, and on their own. Think of them as bacon-flavored tomatoes, or as I like to call them...'bacon-matoes.'

Slice summer tomatoes into pieces that are about 1/4-of-an-inch thick. Season each slice with salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of brown sugar. Using my grill top method, smoke tomatoes for about 3-4 minutes over a mixture of hickory and applewood chips. Now lay tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet and stick them in a 250 degree oven for about an hour or an hour and a half. (You want most of the liquid to evaporate and the top of the tomato to appear dry.) Allow tomato slices to cool completely before handling them or they will fall apart. Store in an airtight container for up to 10 days. The combination of smoke, pepper, and brown sugar makes these tomatoes irresistible.